


Sixth Time Lucky

by Davechicken



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Early Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: The five times they didn't, and the one time they finally did.





	Sixth Time Lucky

The first time is in Rome. The saying ‘when in Rome’ has yet to become popular, mostly because Crowley has had no reason to popularise it, yet. And when he does, it’s bitter-sweet at best. 

After all, Rome changes more rapidly from one extreme to another than almost any dynasty he’s known to date. One moment it’s all stealing the Greek pantheon and painting anyone they conquer in their own colours, and then it’s a million of bright ideas about how to rule with less corruption versus a million and one ideas of how to corrupt what’s in place… stabbings, revolutions, rhetoric, mysteries, cults, orgies, ingestion and the opposite… Republics to Empires to crucifying Christ to feeding his followers to lions to forcing the Word onto everyone… Rome is Humanity in a nutshell. A mess. 

Epicurean extreme and excess rubbing shoulders with Stoic self-denial. It seems to Crowley as if there’s never anything but polar opposites, and considering the way Above and Way Below act, it’s no wonder. 

It also seems to be the first time he’s really seen the angel truly come into himself. They’ve bumped into one another several times, as they wind their way further and further from the Holy Land. They go where it’s most interesting, because that’s where they can be most efficient. Not because you have to keep yourself amused.

(Eternity is long enough without anything to do, or anyone to talk to. Demons aren’t particularly known for their good company, and angels are worse in another way entirely. Humans are alright for a few weeks or months, which seems to be as long as they live. Plus, the whole ‘mark’ thing… it’s hard to tempt and trick and whatnot when you think they’re an okay person. Or okay enough.)

(So maybe it is because he wants to see the angel. But so what. It could be work, too. Demons were angels, once. He can totally tell Head Office that he’s recruiting. Or - or - being a thorn in his side.)

He waltzes around in such sumptuous clothing, trimmed and tricked out. Layers that flow and dance like spun clouds. Bare ankles and - from time to time - lead powders and crushed fruits that stain his skin as he tries out new ways to stand out and blend in at once. Crowley wonders why the Humans are so busy poisoning themselves and damaging their bodies for the sake of pride and reproductive success, but the angel won’t die from Bella Donna, or from the swipe of kohl around his eyes. 

And he doesn’t need it. Not really. Not to blend in enough. It’s _vanity_, and that vanity is enough to mark him out as Different. He isn’t looking to mate and pass on genetic material, and so these signs of willingness are confusing. He wonders - idly - askance - if he’s asking? Or - 

He can’t be. Even when he says he’ll ‘tempt’ him. Even when he declares the slimy slide of mollusc to be an aphrodisiac. He has to _have_ the relevant equipment to be aroused, or assisted in it. 

So he’s just saying it to be polite. Demon and all. Maybe a hot tip. Give the Humans this, and the temptations will go smoother. Which is ridiculous because angels shouldn’t help demons, even if -

They recline, and Crowley lets the food glide past his lips and down his throat, curious how there could be a connection between eating and intercourse. Food is for surviving, right? How are they so ready to turn things into new things? Apples into sin, or into fermented insanity. Alcohol, that invention he wishes he could have taken credit for, that does affect his body in ways he can’t explain but won’t complain about. 

Food and drink and music and laughter. Dancing around fires in the night-warm dunes, or in their brick and stone homes. Trailed over lips. Offered as gifts and bribes. Shared and stolen.

He watches the minute drip of wine-red cross the angel’s cheeks as he indulges. Sees the way his full lips wrap around a vessel, the movement of his throat when he swallows. Hears the soft sighs and fuller voice. Feels the thud of his heart pound faster. Aziraphale enjoys this, and Crowley… enjoys him enjoying it. He’s caught up in the waves of his happiness, the sheer… selfish but non-damaging ways he’s bathing himself in joy. It can’t be holy, but it isn’t damned, either. 

Aziraphale is happy. He’s doing things he technically has no reason to, no remit to… but he hasn’t been told not to. He’s doing these things, and he’s enjoying himself.

Crowley wishes he could feel so free. Could enjoy without a lingering worry, or ache, or… no, demons don’t feel guilt. 

But maybe he does, when he wonders at the end of the night if he should let the angel escape. If he’s reading too much into the warm and kind words. The little half-said things. The twinkle in his eyes. 

And he lets Aziraphale dance away, the edges of his toga kissing his ankles as he goes.

Crowley should have kissed him. 

***

War sucks. It does. It’s just so damn… loud. And messy. And violent. And inconvenient. 

That’s why he doesn’t like it. It has nothing to do with the egregious loss of life, or the fact that usually what they’re fighting for is not actually important. 

And it is nothing whatsoever to do with the fact he’s still pissed about Then. He doesn’t care about That. Or Them. At all. Best thing that happened to him, if you ask him. Getting away from a bunch of stuck up, self-righteous, self-aggrandising, hypocritical bags of feathers that needed tarring to complete the look. 

But it does suck. There’s no finesse in it. So what if the rampaging victors can ravish and rape the women and kill the children. It’s uncouth and base and - he just doesn’t go in for that. 

Head Office like it. They get so many souls, all at once. And they don’t care how, or why. 

Thing is, it’s not very demonic to… go around stopping conflicts. Even he has a hard time convincing The Powers That Be that maybe it’d be better if they could let them take a break and get on with making more souls to corrupt. He gathers a few names and stories, wraps them up neatly, and then gets drunk.

When he sees the angel near the field hospital, he’s curious. They’d both been there, back in the Crusade times. For a bit it had been fun to smack people with metal, but it had hardly lasted. The angel had started life with a flaming bloody sword. Of course he was supposed to like ‘just’ wars… 

The whole books and church thing had been… you know. But he’d not left London, then. And also Crowley isn’t fully sure what he’d been doing, just that it had involved books and bad people and guns and needed his assistance. It could have just been a little one-off thrill because it involved his favourite passtime other than eating…

...but here… he’s made an effort. He’s crossed the Channel again, but he’s not stuffing his face with pastries and getting himself in trouble. He’s in no trouble at all.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

“I could say the same thing,” Aziraphale replies.

Crowley squints from behind tinted glass. “You wanted revenge?”

“....revenge?”

“The church.”

“You blew that up, technically.”

“W-ell… I did redirect a bomb, but it was already coming down, and it just so happened to be convenient,” he counters. “What were you even doing?”

“You have to ask?” He looks away, hands folding like choux in his lap. “It isn’t… this isn’t Good, Crowley.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“It gets worse each time. I thought we had seen the worst, but--”

This war is bigger. Dirtier. Bloodier. And it’s warping people in all the worst ways possible. It’s not just guns and tanks that kill faster, it’s… it’s the gas. And the camps. And…

“Not my work.”

“I didn’t think it was, my dear boy.”

Crowley can smell the decaying bodies, rotting flesh. The echoes of gases. The piss despair. He knows the world is getting darker by the day. He does not like it. 

“...your lot…?” Crowley asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Uh… well. They didn’t start it, but…?”

“I’m not supposed to do more than influence good acts, no.”

“Because…?”

“I wish I knew.” Aziraphale drums at his lap. “You would think that ending such bloodshed and hatred would be considered… ‘good’...”

“Yeah.”

“But… it must be… the Plan.”

The Plan. To let them mutilate and murder. To let them wipe out whole communities. Not that She hadn’t done the same, with her arks and her Soddoms and whatnot. Plagues. Firstborns. Crowley has no idea what kind of Plan could require this, but then, he was kicked out.

He’d feel a lot better if Aziraphale didn’t agree with him, on some level. If it didn’t seem to be the common denomintor. If the angel could just - just - tell him, make him understand, make him see.

“You could… help… you know. A few people. But… the right ones?” he asks, as lightly as he can. Because demons can’t go around stopping wars, just like angels can’t.

“I don’t know…”

“But you wouldn’t be the one _doing_ it,” he reasons. And it’s clear he already wants to, because he’s here… blessing the ones wounded in battle or in the cross-fire. 

“It’s still a little--”

“Temptation - and - blessing - we’re not taking their choices from them. We’re just… nudging them, remember? Still their fault what they do with the nudge.” He is not giving up on this. Not when he can assuage his guilt by convincing an angel to -- ugh -- do the ‘right’ thing. 

The more souls die the less new souls they can make. Maths. He can argue it with charts, and Top Brass will zone out about the time he mentions ‘Standard Deviation’ whether he needs to or not. 

“I - I’m afraid I don’t even know… how…”

Crowley thinks. “You’d be… encouraging… saving lives and whatnot. Yes?”

“Y-yes.”

“And I might be encouraging… going against orders.”

“Yes?”

“So… we could do a good thing, and a bad thing, right at the same time. And maybe we both win, and Humanity does, too.”

“Can that even really work?”

“Don’t see why not.” Just don’t let Hell find out, he thinks. 

It’s why they’re both here, after all. His angel choosing to walk towards the front line and all the hideous things it presents, but no longer for a selfish treat. Working his best attempt to help end hostilities even before Crowley showed to save his feathered butt. 

Disobeying. But disobeying bad orders, which didn’t deserve to be followed. It’s almost demonic, but somehow not. He looks so worried, but so hopeful, too. 

Crowley knows he feels the same way about this whole mess, and knowing he’s not alone… it’s…

Their eyes meet, and the invisible Arrangement expands again. Jealousy that the angel can bend and sway and still not fall churns at his gut, but the fact he’d risk it anyway… 

He should not be doing any of this. Any. But Aziraphale cares so _much_, and year by year it deepens, and Crowley… Crowley… it makes him feel strange. Strange, and not alone. 

But still they say nothing. They just order more wine, and talk in hypotheticals about how ‘one’ might go about this, if - say - one wanted to. 

Crowley just wishes they didn’t have to spend their days jumping through so many hoops.

This time it isn’t a matter of indulgence and hedonistic pleasure. This time, Crowley wants to curl his hands around the angel’s face and kiss his brow. It’s brave, what he’s doing. Brave.

***

Angels were supposed to understand love, but Crowley thinks that either he was defective, or every angel was. Love. Forgiveness. Acceptance. All that nonsense. 

It’s difficult to avoid the dogma fully. It is shouted on the streets, these days by dishevelled people in sandwich boards. It’s on channels dedicated to the pastor’s personal wealth (thankfully less so in London, but he still _knows_). It’s different from the days of Sunday closing when there’d been nothing to do but avoid the bells and bunkum, but it’s still there. 

Crowley does try to avoid it. He even tries to avoid the secular preaching, but it seems like every other story is about it in some way. Boy meets girl. Parent protects child. Human saves world. They’re all different kinds of it, but they’re love stories. 

He tries to see the chaos in them, instead. Tries to enjoy the drama, the crossed lines, the misunderstandings. The farce, rather than the happy endings… although he’d take the comedies over the tragedies any day. 

There are no stories about… him. Not really. Even when he sees echoes of his situation in those muddled up anti-heroes, antagonists, side characters… it’s not quite right. And they never, really, properly get a good ending. Not without dying, and that’s hardly fucking fair. 

So when, one day, he realises he’s in love it’s simultaneously the best and worst thing he’s ever had happen to him in his whole existence, including the first eviction and the time he tried haggis. 

It comes from complete left field. They’re sitting watching the ducks - as they often do - and Aziraphale is talking about a documentary he watched. His enjoyment of this new knowledge he’s seeking to impart is woefully dated by at least three years, but he’s sharing the facts he’s memorised as if it’s some kind of divine revelation.

He’s always been a little slow on the uptake. Always lagging behind. The facts bubble out of him with animated glee and little nudges of his hands through the air.

It can’t be love, Crowley thinks, as he pretends he didn’t know all about the way strawberries can reproduce and the glow in the dark genes moved around to better understand the maths of reproduction. It can’t be love, that he gives him this little lie just to keep listening. 

There’s no real reason to meet, not today. It’s a nominal meeting, on a nice day, the pair of them basking in the rare heat. The world passes them by, with children haring after their latest must-have items, and adults ignoring one another as they live in their own, internal purgatories. Crowley only half pays attention to them, because it’s…

Aziraphale actually enjoys this. This. His company. He’s sought him out today for the sole reason of spending time with him, not to find some way to better stave off their respective bosses. He’s bubbling over with thoughts he has no one else to share them with, and instead of feeling lonely… it feels good. Right? It’s not that he’s just… the best option. He’s an okay option, isn’t he?

He must be. He’s a demon, and the angel doesn’t… really mind.

Love is all those dumb things, or so he’s been led to believe. It’s fairgrounds and candyfloss and arguing and giant toys and jealousy and not being sure until somethings means you are. Sure. He’s now talking about carrots, and Crowley could listen for years on end. 

He falls in love, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Nothing but sit and narrow his mouth to press down on any ridiculous things he might otherwise do. 

How many times has he saved his ass? And - okay - so he’d have had no one else to spend his time with if he didn’t… but he’s beginning to realise he really, actually, likes it. The time. With him. Whether it’s arguing the semantics of any ethical paradox they’re currently obsessed by, or reviewing the best New World wine, or… talking about botany or the rude customer who nearly got fed to a giant Venus fly trap. 

It’s not any lingering thoughts about lascivious lips. It’s not the blessing of a partner before he marches off to stop a war. It’s not - 

He just wants to brush his lips against the angel’s. Wants to smile, and say it’s… what?

Forever? It’s plants. And ducks. And company. When there’s no better.

(It’s so much more.)

He doesn’t do it, but he runs through every possibility in his head. That has to count for something, right?

***

Brother Francis looks ridiculous, but that’s what the angel chose. Nanny Astoreth isn’t sure what it means that she doesn’t mind in the slightest, instead finding it endearing. 

She’s - he’s - (it’s complicated) - dressed and lived female before, but she’s found that the benefits of a male interpretation outweighed any preference she might truly have. Right now she is most assuredly she. And she is annoyed by the fact that she has to be a she to avoid any suspicion over her ability or interest in rearing another’s child. She is also annoyed that everyone talks to her differently. 

The doors held open. The ‘oh, I’m sorry, I forgot there were ladies present’, as ‘chivalry’ and politeness censor her out of speech. 

They shouldn’t treat her differently, but they do. 

Always about the bloody difference, aren’t they? The ways in which two people diverge, rather than what they have in common. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t always so negative…

Nanny does not want to echo these lessons with the young Antichrist, but what is she supposed to do? She’s supposed to bring him up just bad enough, balanced against the angel. But how do you sell things you’re not sure you believe in?

And then there’s the part where she’s reinforcing the stereotypes by her very ‘gender’. 

It’s. A mess. As usual.

Brother Francis is still the same Aziraphale, just a different voice and appearance. Yet, he ‘seems’ less intellectual, even though she knows he isn’t. She watches how people interact with the gardener, and she’s left wondering if she’s acting differently, too.

In private, the voice goes back to ‘normal’. An act, then. Not his true self. Not in the truest sense.

She watches how the angel acts around her. Watches how he acts around the child. Watches, watches, watches. So much hinges on the three of them, and she’s determined to never, ever let the stress get to her… but it is.

It’s in the questions Warlock asks. It’s in the way she feels pulled between the work and - and - 

The boy is in bed. The parents are out, or knocked out. She’s sitting on the small patio, nursing sharp spirits on small icecubes. 

“How do we know we’re doing it right?” she asks the gardener who has slunk up to join her.

“I’m not sure we can.”

“But - but - what if we do too good a play in one direction?” It could all come crumbling down. He could decide to destroy it all. Or he could decide to do whatever it is that Heaven wants. 

“We can only do our best. We’ve kept the world on an even keel so far, haven’t we?”

Not too much good. Not too much bad. And as much enjoyable time as possible. Yes. 

It’s just.

It’s. Important. She keeps thinking about the alternatives, about what it would be like to be… to be in Hell, forever. To be tortured by the banality of cruel and unimaginative minds. To be…

To be without him.

To be…

She grips her gloves, and doesn’t know how to say it. The boy she’s trying to keep just bad enough to be believable, but balanced. The boy she… doesn’t really want to want to destroy, though she can’t help but think it would be safer if she could. The boy who holds the whole universe in his hands.

Who has the power to take her angel away from her. To leave Nanny - Crowley - all and every incarnation - without. Without Aziraphale. 

She hasn’t seen that ridiculous frock coat in forever, but it isn’t that. It isn’t the ducks and it isn’t the books and it isn’t anything but him. Someone so perfect and imperfect at the same time. Full of love, but full of pride, too. Smart, and dumb. Caring. And… and… company. It’s.

It’s.

Stockholm, right? 

She really isn’t in love. She really doesn’t see the gardener with their young godson, and wonder what it would be like to really raise--

She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. 

(Except. If it ever was going to happen... )

She isn’t thinking about how it would feel to move away, somewhere, somehow, that Heaven and Hell couldn’t find them. Isn’t being broody and aching for some life she was never made for. 

Domesticity would kill her. She’s too restless, after all. She’d not want the responsibility. She’d--

(A garden. They could have a garden. A library. A wine cellar. A conservatory, to sit in the magnified sun. To watch the stars overhead. Something they chose for themselves, something just for them. She could cook, or he could. Or she wouldn’t have to be Nanny, or she could, or….)

Despite the prickly shell she wraps herself in, she feels a heavy, warm hand on one shoulder. It sends a jolt down her stiff spine as she imagines her wings arching out in pleasure at the simple contact. She could pick him up and fly away with him, take him away from the world that’s slowly ending, make their own…

But there’s a quiet mutter of apology after the brief reassurance, and the wall is up again. The you-and-I-are-not-the-same. The reminder that this - all of this - is a lie. 

She wishes he would ask her. Ask her things an angel could never ask a demon, but maybe a gardener could ask his childminding colleague. She wishes he would ask her for ritual tea, or put his hand over hers. She wishes he would romance her, and she hates herself for letting the concepts of love and life and what’s supposedly between her legs control her thoughts so much. 

It’s not possible, and if they started… she would never be able to stop.

***

Drunk. He’s drunk. He’s lost the fucking Antichrist. Fucking. There’s only one of them! You can’t just - just - order another. Can’t contact the Mail Department of Hell and claim it was defective, or that without a Proof of Delivery they can’t say he had him in the first place.

He’s lost the fucking. ANTICHRIST. Child of Satan. He was trying to fuck up the end of the world and he’s even managed to fuck up fucking up! He’d think in more delicate curses if he wasn’t a whole Ikea bedding warehouse of sheets to the wind by now. 

Aziraphale is fretting. Fussing. Pacing. Muttering. His hair is mussed in a way that isn’t perfectly pretty, and he’s miserable as they come. He’s talking about sofas and divine retribution and punishment and how they were foolish to think they could - or should - do better, or more, and--

It’s all going wrong all over again. 

This always happens to him. 

He tries to do the right thing, or what he thinks is the right thing, or just to - to exist - and it all goes… it’s…

Crowley does not want to lose the world. Okay? It’s. Fuck. It’s not - it’s - Heaven is a straightjacket, a choke-chain, and Hell is an eternity of Wham played on the kazoo up your ass and every time you think you’d rather be dead the physical pain you’re in inches higher and higher with a mix of boredom and torture. 

And neither of them are anything like fun. Even if he decided to buy into the whole torture gig, how would that be - it just - no. 

Here. Here there’s music. And there’s long, episodic television shows with character development and drama and good music. There’s alcohol, and all the associated good and bad memories that brings. There’s sunlight. There’s houseplants. There’s fast cars. There’s vaguely amusing games to play, alone or with others. There’s the Edinburgh Fringe. There’s cartoons. There’s people wearing utterly ludicrous outfits to mock. There’s the feel of the breeze across your face as your shoulders are pounded with glorious heat. There’s the awful fucking things people do to one another, balanced by the utterly opposite where they surprise you by doing shit that just… makes no sense… but is… sweet. It’s.

He likes the world. He likes the Earth. He likes the stories they tell. He likes that they don’t know for sure, and they still try. He likes that they make up fake people and use them to explore the universe. He likes that they don’t stop to think if they should put a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey. He likes that they invented watches. That they put numbers on everything. That they argue about the numbers. That they don’t fucking give up, even though they have very little reason to keep trying. 

He likes that… he fucked it all up, but they still find a way to be happy. Not always, but enough.

And he likes - loves - cares about - appreciates - whatever - the angel.

The angel, with his fussy clothing that makes him look like he wouldn’t survive five minutes as a real Human, bullied and abused from being small upwards. The angel that dresses this way and still would rip your damn face off if you tried to take his shop from him. Who does care about Humans, but also cares about his favourite dishes and about things not being too loud or fast or getting in the way of his routine. 

The angel, who would rather he didn’t die, which is more than any other creature or being that he’s ever known, and if that isn’t a depressingly low bar for a good friend then he doesn’t know what is. 

But. They _are_, technically, enemies. And every other angel he’s ever met really feels that way, and likely would want to hang him on a rack and pluck him and stuff him with the aforementioned turducken. 

And Aziraphale not only doesn’t want him to die, but was prepared to fight with him and screw over their companionship and dinner dates just to make sure he didn’t give up on his life. It wasn’t about - about - keeping his drinking partner. It was - it was - doing the right thing for him, even at a cost or risk to himself. 

The damn (blessed) Thermos is still in his safe, and he’s going to have to use it before long. His mind keeps wandering back to it, and trying to work out of an impossible knot of circumstances. 

He wants to stay. He wants to stay with his angel. He - fuck - oh fuck - he can’t do this without him. Any of it. Would it be better to… to not…

He…

They can’t. They can’t win. They can’t be together, not here. 

They can’t retire off somewhere, and raise plants. They can’t just pull the shutters down over the shop and weather out the Apocalypse. They can’t be who they are, and they can’t keep going, and they can’t fight Heaven **and** Hell, and neither of them are worth joining forces with, even to stay together.

And his angel doesn’t even really want to. Not really. Not enough. He doesn’t - can’t - won’t. 

If this were one of those romcoms he pretends he doesn’t love, he’d grab him and kiss him and they’d find some miracle way to fix all their problems at once. He’d come to some epiphany. He’d find a way to save them.

But instead, he feels his whole world fall apart and it’s worse than Then. 

Which means it has to be love.

Because nothing else could feel this fucking miserable, and still have him wanting more. Nothing else could leave him incapable of saying what he needs, or scare him so much that literal non-existence is a real contender for long-term strategy of Life Without Aziraphale.

Maybe he was right to not want to give it to him. 

Crowley is doomed. And still he can’t quite give up that desperate hope that he’s wrong. 

That, or he’s a coward.

***

The world has not ended. It has not ended for every day it has existed, to be fair, but this one was closer than all the others. 

Crowley is still in shock.

Even a demon has limits on what they can process, and he’s feeling like he’s running on Windows Vista, and he’s been asked to open Internet Explorer. Things are spinning, he understands that they are, but he’s unable to process or act on any of it.

He spends their whole - uh - date? In a state of ‘what the fuck is this?’ and ‘what the fuck is that?’. 

Satan. Adam. Witches. Aliens. Bombs. Heaven. Aziraphale’s ridiculous amounts of layers. His _car_. And. And.

You know. Apart from the part where maybe he was doing Her bidding all along (and isn’t that a fucking kick in Gabriel’s too-present teeth), and he’s seen Heaven again and is **very** sure he never wants to go back there _ever again_ even if he got a gold-plated and hand-written apology on a private moon. 

It is a date, right? I mean.

How do you know?

And does it count if they aren’t going to… uh. 

Aziraphale spent the night at his. Even after they saw the Bentley was fine, and found all the mess cleared up. Crowley had worried he would demand he went straight to his bookshop and then he wouldn’t know he was still safe, but instead he’d suggested they stay together at least for the night. 

Crowley hadn’t been able to sleep, buzzed but exhausted. Sleep was not needed, but he’d become used to it. Helped with the boring days, but there’d been…

The angel had sided with him. And the Antichrist. Against the Heavenly Host, Satan, and Armageddon. It wasn’t a small thing, like not trying to thwart him, or offering to hold the door for him, or offering him a cup of tea. He’d thrown the whole damn thing in the air and.

Then they’d gone home. To his home. On a bus. And he’d put his hand over his, and they’d sat - touching - electricity arcing between them and no words to acknowledge what they’d just done. 

Then the smooth fucker even worked out some way to save their lives and swapped damn _bodies_ and even lives in the process. ‘We’re not friends’. People who weren’t friends didn’t do that. 

The Ritz. Because. Friends did that, didn’t they? They did. But. 

They’re sitting together, like they have so many times, but it’s all different. Wasn’t it? It was. 

Not only is he Windows Vista, he’s trying to download a cumulative security update. And do a virus scan. And load a really badly infested page. 

He’d told him. Told him he was his best friend. The most ridiculously undemonic thing he could possibly have done, short of wear a fucking fairy suit and go around granting wishes to sick kids or something. (Ignoring the various miracles he’d done, because those _had_ been for Aziraphale, and on a quid pro quo basis, it was just a matter of efficiency, having Aziraphale do some for him and vice versa. They would have been done anyway and so it didn’t count.)

It’s. It’s just that he kind of wants it to be more. He’s laid everything out, and he’s… Aziraphale is literally all he has, now, and if he rejects him… so he can’t… he…

He wants so desperately to be able to say it, but when they try, they end up shouting, from past experience. But surely the angel is in the same boat? He has no Heaven - not that he had much of it before - and…

It’s the way he _smiles_ and it turns everything inside to mush. And apparently just seeing him smile and agreeing to spend the rest of eternity with him and only him isn’t enough. Apparently the Ritz, and bottles of wine, and walks in the park, and physically being one another and champagne and everything isn’t. **ENOUGH**. 

Does it mean the same to him? Or is he projecting? Is he just--

Aziraphale slides his arm through the crook of Crowley’s as they leave, and he can feel the eyes of everyone in the building on him, or he’s sure he can. 

Friends do that. Best friends do that. Hereditary enemies who rejected six thousand years of doctrine and belief structures…? 

He says nothing as they walk outside, and he’s going to screw it up. Either by saying something flippant, or saying something unwelcome, or acting like he just doesn’t want to talk to him ever again because that’s what he’s doing right now. 

But he does. He does. All the stupid conversations about ducks. About whales. About whether writing was better when it zig-zagged or when it jumped back and forth or when it included symbols or--

He wants that. And he wants the bottles of wine. And he wants the oysters. And he wants the arguments. And he wants the garden. And he wants the times when they say fuck it and do what they know is right, anyway. And he wants him to hold his hand on the bus, even if it means getting on a bus. And he wants - he wants -

They both turn their heads together, blurting out and stopping when they overlap. 

Crowley is sure his heart is going to stop. He wants… Aziraphale. He’s not sure what it means, or if it even means anything different to what it already is, but he needs, needs, **needs** it to be said, somehow. Acknowledged. Open. Honest. He needs to know his angel knows. Needs to know… it’s… as big in his angel’s chest as it is in his. That it’s - well - love. The kind that makes you sick to your stomach. The kind that makes you giddy and want to just be near one another. That would have you risk fucking everything, but be equally terrified that you’re going to be laughed out of existence if you say--

They’ve stopped walking. It’s a summer’s evening, when the air stays balmy but the street lights bathe the sky and cast down haloed glows in patches. When birds screech in perpetual confusion at the never-dark night. When people hurry home to rest, or drink like it will solve all their problems and maybe if they believe it enough, it will. 

No one knows. No one knows he’s a demon cast out of Heaven **and** Hell. No one knows Aziraphale is an angel who delights in erratum and torturing archangels. No one knows they saved everything, and no one knows they’ve been watching since Day One.

He wonders if anyone is watching _them_.

I love you. I’m in love with you. I can’t live without you. I need you to know. I need you to know and no matter how often I say it, it won’t be enough. No matter what I do for you, it won’t be enough. No--

Their feet point almost directly at one another, and the linked arms have slid, down to join palms together. The nobble of each knuckle and bone. The slight sheen of sweat. It’s a simple gesture, but the longer they stand like this, the longer they hold on with this one act of rebellion against all the reasons not to… the more his chest aches and his eyes sting and music makes sense and everything makes sense and all the pain was worth it but does he **KNOW**? Does he? Does he realise it’s real? That - that - when he holds his hand and peers over his glasses to watch every flicker of his eyes - that he’s offering something for the rest of his life? That he’s forgiven every mistake, even if he hasn’t forgotten? That he knows him - really knows him - and chooses him? 

Does… does he mean it back?

Cyclists whir by. A child shrieks. The world spins - continues to spin - chaotic and messy and a mix of good and bad and funny and sad and angry and happy and loving and _continuing_. 

He feels blue eyes stroke over him and know him. Know him well enough that even Hell itself couldn’t tell them apart. Know his fears, and his frustrations, and his… things he dreams about, maybe. Know him, and not recoil. Not turn away. Not reject him. Not cast him out. 

Crowley wants to run, suddenly, because it’s all so fucking _hard_ and how can Aziraphale really… not that he’s perfect, but - Crowley’s tried - and--

The angel reaches minutely up, and the demon tilts his head down. A brush of hair together, and then there’s contact so intimate that he could scream. It doesn’t really matter what word they use. Friend, best friend, angel, dear… love. It doesn’t, does it? He’s known him all this time, and he’s finally chosen him. Even though it nearly killed them. He’s chosen him.

Kissing is for Humans. It’s about hormones and pacts and things. Tasting compatability. Offering vulnerability. Or something. Love is for - is for--

He feels a hand rest over his heart, and he uses his own to tilt the angel’s face upwards. Their eyes meet again, and Aziraphale is crying. It’s the intensity, not… sadness. Or maybe a little regret, for lost time? Maybe. There’s a million things moving there, and Crowley memorises them all in a blink.

And then he leans in to breathe against his lips, not closing the distance between them, not until he knows for certain.

“Crowley,” comes a rough voice, tickling his lips.

“Yes, angel?”

“You took me to the Ritz.”

“Yes, angel.”

“I think I might be ready… for that lift, now. If you should still be willing to provide it.”

“Where would you like me to take you?” he asks, smiling and aching and oh why does it hurt so much when they’re doing nothing but stand close and talk?

“Anywhere. So long as it’s with you.”

That’s permission, and he pushes his fingers into his hair, and presses his lips against the broken smile. He tastes cake and regret and longing and hope and fear and the scent of his angel - known and longed for, for so many years - as he feels the subtle press of a body against his own. 

A pact. An Arrangement. An agreement. 

One with no terms, other than: ‘as long as it’s with you’.

It’s a rule, for once, he’s glad to obey.


End file.
